Meet the Double Haploid team
Meet the Genetic Resources team in the Genetic Improvement Portfolio
Headed by Senior Research Scientist, Sue Broughton, this group of dedicated Genetic Resources staff support the Germplasm Repository and the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) Cereal Doubled Haploid Program.
Newest team member is Salzar Rahman, who joined the Germplasm Repository project as a Research Scientist in June 2023, with support from casual Technical Officer Kim Tanlamai.
The Germplasm Repository project was developed in response to the 2020-25 Strategic Plan of the Genetic Improvement portfolio where the team identified there were significant genetic resources (seed lines) in the portfolio that were not centrally documented or stored in ideal conditions.
Plant genetic resources are the foundation of crop improvement and vital for pre-breeding research, plant breeding and food security.
DPIRD’s Genetic Improvement Portfolio has developed and acquired important germplasm of crops such as wheat, barley, oats, and lupins, comprising thousands of lines.
These genetic resources are a vital resource for current and future projects.
The project also has the capacity to develop new high priority research populations that will address future research targets and gain leverage in funding applications.
Some highlights of the project to date include the purchase of cloud-based plant breeding/germplasm software called BMS-Pro, the installation of environmental monitoring (temperature and humidity) via a LoWaRAN system in five cool rooms used by the Genetic Improvement Portfolio, crossing and the development of new crossbreds and doubled haploid populations for several DPIRD projects, and the development of a protocol for germplasm storage (with thanks to Daniel Taylor, DPIRD intellectual property officer and their team).
The Cereal Doubled Haploid Program has a longer history, originally supporting the department’s barley and wheat breeding efforts, when breeding programs were part of the department.
Following the privatization of Australian cereal breeding programs (~ 2010-2011), the program continued to provide doubled haploid (DH) lines to plant breeding companies and researchers across Australia.
Doubled haploid production is an important tool for rapidly generating fixed lines and can save time in variety development.
At DPIRD, researchers have developed culture protocols where immature pollen cells (haploid microspores) are diverted from their normal developmental pathway to one of embryogenesis and haploid plant development.
Following a chromosome-doubling step, the resulting doubled haploid or ‘DH’ plants are fully fertile and 100% homozygous (fixed or true breeding) at all loci and are valuable tools for breeding, genetic research, and gene mapping.
As with many plant tissue culture protocols, success rates vary widely between different genotypes.
It is an ongoing challenge to produce the required number of DH lines from the wide variety of genotypes we handle.
Currently, there are four permanent staff working on the program including Research Scientist Dr Marieclaire Castello, Senior Technical Officers Li Liu and Julie Killen, and Technical Officer Chris McMullan.
Additional staff are recruited for the peak production period between January and June each year with assistance from short term/casual Technical Officers Simone Wells (2022-2024), Dr Diem Ly and Christine Munday (2023).
The program currently produces ~ 15,000 wheat and barley DH lines annually.
Breeding companies are the team’s largest clients and provide the foundation of support that allows the program to develop important populations for researchers at DPIRD, Murdoch University (including the Western Crop Genetics Alliance or WCGA), Curtin University and other Australian institutions.
For example, the DH team have developed over 47,000 barley DH lines (over 300 populations) which have been extensively utilised by researchers at DPIRD and the WCGA in genetic and gene mapping studies.
The DH team have also developed over 3,200 wheat DH lines (14 populations) for DPIRD researcher, Dr Manisha Shankar, and her team, which have been used to study the genetic control of important wheat diseases in WA including yellow spot, nodorum blotch and powdery mildew.
In addition to wheat and barley DH production, we have also been able to support DPIRD researchers with some specialist DH production.
In 2021/22 we produced over 400 canola DH lines for Dr Ben Congdon.
Ben required DH populations of Brassica napus to fast track the development of pure-breeding lines with resistance to Turnip Yellows Virus (TuYV) for prebreeding and genetic mapping.
He made crosses between disease resistance and susceptible Brassica napus varieties/lines and we developed a series of DH populations from these crosses.
Resistant lines have been identified in glasshouse trials and Ben is planning to confirm this data with field experiments.
2023 also saw the release of several cereal varieties that were developed through the DH Program.
In June 2023, the barley variety ‘Neo’ was released by InterGrain.
In September 2023, two wheat varieties, ‘LongReach Tracer’ and LongReach Major’, were released by LongReach Plant Breeders.